Patchwork upholstery

Cath Kidston vintage find in the Brighton shop

Cath Kidston has been giving me ideas...again! I think i want to cover my little arm chair in a patchwork like this. I think it looks amazing.

I had better get sewing.

More upholstery - drop seats

The summer holidays feel like they have stretched on for eons because I didn't enrol in Upholstery summer school early enough to get a spot this year. But, before I finished up the last term, I began stripping and upholstering the first of four vintage drop seats for a neighbour.  

Old, dusty, brown covers = yuck.

The stripping process was fairly grim, the frame was crammed full of tacks (which are fine) and staples (which AREN'T!)

The frames were in pretty bad shape, so i had a lot of filling to do. 

Strapping (aka webbing) the base. 

All ready for the new school year and a bit of rubberised hair! 

It has been fun learning how to upholster two different types of chairs at the same time. Expect an update soon!

Upholstery update: The loft chair

It has been a while since the last upholstery update. When i last wrote, i had just finished my bed, and was starting on a lovely little arm chair i found in our loft.

Once the chair was stripped and ready to go, i got to work, getting to calico on the arms and back very quickly as i was able to use some more modern techniques and time saving materials like rubberised hair.

Here is how the chair has progressed so far.

1. I think you call this hessian band webbing (I am, as ever, oblivious to the correct 'professional' terms for things - I took up golf a few years ago now and I still refer to my golf clubs as stick, poles or rods!)  but i prefer to refer to it as 'strapping'. 'Strapping' was the first stage, with 3 running vertically down each arm and the back of the chair. The straps support the frame, the subsequent layers, and eventually, me, when I get to sit in the finished chair!

This stage is quite tricky and takes time and lots of hammered fingers to try and get the correct tension in the straps. 

2. Next comes the hessian. This is almost like the first layer of bread, with the final material being the other piece, that the other materials (horse hair, wadding and lots of sewing!) will be sandwiched between.

Again, the hessian needs to be as taut as possible.

3. Once the hessian has been tacked in place and 'hammered home', and trimmed, the rubberised hair is pinned into place with enormous pins...

...before being sewn into place and trimmed down to size. The rubberised hair is a massive time saver, as i didn't have to sew and then stuff loose horse hair into place. This stage can take a long time as it is difficult to get the loose horse hair to the same level across the piece as lumps and bumps are inevitable. The rubberised hair saves you from having to deal with this problem as well as ensuring you have a nice springy stuffing. 

4. After applying a layer of wadding, I cut and tacked the calico into place. I then pinned the 3 sections of calico (2 x arms and 1 x back) together at the joins...    

...before sewing them together with ladder stitch.

I then re-stretched the calico and finally hammered all the tacks home finishing up the calico stage of the chair back.

With the back complete to calico, i am going to start on the seat of the chair. This will take a bit longer than the back as i wont be able to cheat with modern techniques this time. I will also be dealing with springs, which is something new for me, but i have seen from my classmates that they can be troublesome and time consuming. Still, it will be great to learn something new as i have really enjoyed learning some of the modern techniques after two years of traditional ones on my bed. 

It is probably time to start looking for fabric!

Our fantastic fireplace and the domino effect

I know i have written about our loft bedroom fireplace before, but we have just completed some work on it recently that i wanted to share - it is finally 'finished'. After over a year of umming and ahhing we finally bit the bullet and sprayed the fireplace and its wooden backing frame with a matt black stove paint.

I think it looks amazing. We were both so scared that we wouldn't like the effect, having grown so fond of the raw iron look, however it has turned out brilliantly. The sharper shade of black shows of the tiles even better than before. The whole structure looks uniform all of a sudden, i don't why it took us to long to decide to do it now - but i suppose everything is always clearer in hindsight.

What's more, we have grown tired of the 'white everywhere' look and have started splashing Farrow and Ball paint (I LOVE LOVE LOVE this paint!) on every surface we can find. Our bedroom walls are now sporting a very pretty shade of Ringwold Ground, a dusky cream, and the fireplace recess has been painted Calamine (my absolute favourite colour at the moment), a dusky pink to match. The lavender we had painted previously on the chimney breast was pretty, but it just wasn't the right colour for the room and didn't match our belongings (you can see it here). Where the lavender clashed, the new shades complement the curtains i made many moons ago for our old bedroom, but because i spent so long sewing them, there was no way i was leaving them behind when we moved upstairs (that said, i still need to hem the bottoms!). The cream wall with the pink feature echos the pink flowers on the yellowy cream background of the fabric.

Most of the fireplace tiles present this colour and pattern style too - with pink blooms in the lovely yellow glaze.

On top of this, the bedside table i painted with leftover paint matches perfectly, with James White (another Forrow and Ball paint, though this time in the eggshell finish - the rest has been painted using the estate emulsion that gives a matt finish) being used on the bed and the built in shelves. It even has the Calamine interior to match the fireplace recess.

I used the curtains and of course THE bed to inform our colour choice. In the end, they acted as the first piece in the Domino effect - something i read about in a beautiful, inspiring and thoroughly accessible interior design book by the same name - Domino (eds Deborah Needleman, Sara Ruffin Costello, & Dara Caponigro). They reason that you probably have a few pieces that you really love and it should be these pieces that you decorate around and in the end you should get 'your look', and it will probably end up being something quite personal and even better, it doesn't have to be expensive. I think our bedroom is a brilliant example. It wont by any means be to everyone's taste. But it is perfect to me. The assault of prints, pattern and colour on the eye make it everything i love. For a long time, i kept getting stuck, for example i painted that wall lavender just because i loved the colour without really thinking about the other items and features in the room. The book's strap line - 'a room-by-room guide to creating a home that makes you happy' says it all really.

So, yes, i think it is all, finally, coming together. I think it takes time to know how to decorate a space, i think living in the loft as a large white canvas for the last 12 months has given us the chance to imagine and dream about what our bedroom could be. I'm a bit worried that it maybe has turned out a bit feminine for my husband, but the overruling motif of flowers is one that he appreciates in the garden, so i figure he cant object too much! I think, overall, the warm glow of the colours and preloved nature of most of the furniture gives the room a sense of character as well as being comfortable and inviting. I tell myself this in order to feel better about it taking well over a year to get out room looking complete!

Now, i just need to get back to the markets and salvage another bedside table, this time for my husband, because the thing he has at the moment just isn't cutting it!

My perfect bedside table*

A few weeks ago, I took a trip out to my favourite antique fair, Sunbury, in search of a new (by new, I mean old, but new to me) piece of furniture I could use as a bedside table, and some of those pretty antique mirrors with the bevelled edges I love so much. And I was very successful, walking a kilometre back to the car with a potential bedside table and two heavy mirrors wedged under each arm. When I finally got my breath back and my arms no longer felt like they had been stretched, Gumby-esque, so my fingers could brush the ground as I walked, I started the car and bundled everything home.

The bedside table was a bit of a mess really. And it wasn’t the best quality, nor the best value really, costing me £40, but there was something about it that I just really liked. Its shape, its shelves, its sweet little cupboard space, it was everything I had in mind for the perfect bedside table. It was a bit warped, and one of its legs had seen better days, with a metal bit jammed into the rotten wood to make the unit stand straight. It was dirty and its paint was chipped and yellow. It also only had one knob that I suspect was from the 70’s – retro, but not in a good way – and rather incongruous. Despite all this though, I just knew – this was the bedside table for me.

Once home, my husband went over it with the electric sander to even out its imperfections and help me prep for the paint job I was about it give it.

I used some left over bits of paint from other projects around the house, all Farrow and Ball, to give it a new look. Gone was the dirty, yellow, chipped exterior, now a beautiful antique white, James White, in an eggshell finish. The inside of the cupboard, once red, having been coated with what I can only guess was red oxide paint, although I can’t think why, is now a beautiful pale, dirty pink, very much like its name, Calamine. I then painted over the once black inside of the doors with Lamp Room Grey.

The single incongruous knob has been replaced with two pretty mismatching glazed ceramic knobs from Anthropologie - one a pink flower with aged bronze fittings, and the other, a yellow drop knob, again with aged bronze fittings. Both match the colour scheme perfectly, and complement each other enormously (even if I do say so myself!).

Disappointingly, I didn’t get a photo of the bedside table before I started work on it – I always seem to realise I have forgotten this towards the end of my renovation. But I have got some in progress shots as well as one of the ‘original’ knob that I think I might clean up and try and find a home for elsewhere.

Finally, here is the bedside table, in situ, next to the rescued and newly upholstered bed. I can honestly say that after I pick my favourite pyjamas (always Peter Alexander) from one of the shelves, place my beloved iPhone on to charge on the shelf next to my bedtime reading, smooth on some Rose L’Occitaine hand cream from the cupboard, deposit my watch on the surface and finally take a sip of my water before I settle in for sleep, I close my eyes smiling.

*perfect to me anyway.

Quilting and instant gratification napkins

I have started a quilt - and i have probably bitten off a bit more than i can chew, but when has that ever stopped me?

I was shopping in Cath Kidston several months ago, when i spied the most beautiful quilt i have ever seen in my life! I don't know exactly what it was that made me love it SO much, but i think it might have been the use of white with the immense variety of pretty patterned colourful segments that pleased my eye. I am a pattern junky, and this quilt was overloaded with different types - all very retro, although i cant know its age, a lot of the fabrics remind me of my granny's linen cupboard, anything from 30's to 70's.

I think it is kind of a 'charm' quilt in that there were no obvious repeats in the fabric (there were a few though, it took me a good while to spot them), however i don't know that the white 'background' really fits with this. I wish i had some kind of quilt mentor who could answer my questions - in fact a quilt course at university would be brilliant, there is so much to know and learn! The other thing i especially loved was the 'floral' type arrangement of these patterned segments. I stood for ages trying to work out the pattern exactly and how it broke down into squares.

You might ask why i didn't just buy the quilt? Well at close to £500 it was a bit out of my budget, but i was determined to have something similar.

And so, after taking a few trips to fabric shops around London and to the Eternal Maker in Chichester, i have finally worked up the courage to try and make my own.

First of all, i needed to work out the pattern. I did this by using my finger and hand to measure the original pieces and then went from there - not an exact science, but i think i have got it right to the inch. I then got out my old school geometry set and employing both compass and protractor, started sketching away a plan. I had to remember all of the triangle rules and what angles i needed for each corner -  whoever said you never use maths again after school must have never tried to make up a quilt pattern before! Once i had this all sorted, i washed and ironed and folded about 12 different fabrics and began cutting.

I have managed to sew together the beginnings of my first square; I have at least 41 more to go! So, I am definitely in this for the long haul. I am pretty thrilled with it - and i hope one day i will have something that doesn't look too far off the original. As a complete novice i have struggled a little with sewing the curved edges together, but i am finding that hand sewing, is not only very relaxing, but also very forgiving. I hope that i will be able to employ my sewing machine at some point to try and speed the process up, but I'm not sure if i will be able to control how well all of the points meet. In any case, i am not in any hurry, aside from wanting to see it all finished and laid out on my new bed.

To sate my hunger for instant gratification, i whipped up these two napkins for the dinner table out of some left over Cath Kidston fabric i had left over from a table cloth.

Very satisfying.